Using AOMEI Backupper for SSHD Upgrade

Free after sharing:

I always shy away from FREE utilities because some may contain malware or adware. The only gotcha with this utility is that you need to copy the first sentence you see above to either your social media pages or website. I decided rather than just share, I’d review it at the same time, hence this post. I am NOT being compensated in any way other than unlocking the functionality of the utility. A quick investigation indicates that others have used it without any issues. Their business model is that you share or purchase the Pro version for $49.95.

Clone HDD to SSHD:

This free utility claims it can clone your system drive to a new drive of any size. Unlike some other disk management tools I have tried (Paragon Disk Manager 14) it is able to copy the drive while Windows 10 is running. The user interface is very simple and intuitive. I am trying it myself as I write this post to clone a three partition 2Tb system drive to a new Seagate SSHD drive. The new SSHD (Solid State Hybrid Drive) drives combine the high speed of a solid state drive with the high capacity of a conventional hard drive.

Fast and Easy:

AOMEI Backupper looks like it runs fast completing 65% of the 2Tb drive in about 25 minutes. It’s still chugging away. It looks like it has already copied Volume 0 and Volume 1 quickly and is now working on Volume 2 which is 1.8Tb. I’ll update the post after completion. The larger partition will likely take a few hours.

Result:

After about 3 hours total time, the drive clone was completed. One thing odd was that it assigned a drive letter to each of the local disk and system reserved partitions. I used Paragon to remove those and set the data partition to the next available drive letter of P:.
I removed the old C: drive, upgraded my noisy accessory drive cooling fan, slapped the covers back on and rebooted. To my enjoyment, the system booted right up and even converted the drive letter to C: automatically. Another computer job completed successfully. Both AOMEI Backupper and the SSHD are highly recommended. No reason to fear the upgrade, go for it!

Performance of the new SSHD:

All I can say is WOW! My old Western Digital Red NAS system drive was super slow. All programs were “doggy” when starting and if you pull up task manager and switch to the Performance tab, you could see the C: drive hitting 100% and staying there for 5 to 10 seconds. Photoshop took about 45 seconds to be fully ready, now it’s under 5 seconds and the drive never maxes out to 100%.
All programs are noticeably faster. What a great upgrade.